1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to IEEE 1394 data translation, and more particularly, to an analog translator for the IEEE 1394 bus by which it is possible to use analog devices when such analog devices are connected to the IEEE 1394 bus and a translating method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, various digital devices such as digital TVS (DTVs), digital video cameras (DVCs), digital video disk players (DVDPs), and digital set-top boxes are increasingly being used. The IEEE 1394 serial bus is specifically used as an interface for the above devices. It is to be noted that, for interfacing a device using the IEEE 1394 bus, the device is required to be a digital device. However, a substantial number of audio/video devices currently used in the home are analog devices. These analog devices, therefore, are incompatible with the IEEE 1394 serial bus that forms a key component of home networks. Therefore, to be compatible with IEEE 1394, such analog audio/video devices must be replaced by digital audio/video devices. To avoid such a replacement, an analog translator for the IEEE 1394 is required.
To solve the above problem, it is an object of the present invention to provide an analog translator for the IEEE 1394 bus for interfacing analog devices such as TVS, camcorders, and VCRs with the IEEE 1394 bus based on a digital interface in order to allow the analog devices to operate as a part of home networks.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an analog translating method for the IEEE 1394 bus.
Accordingly, to achieve the first object, An analog translator for the IEEE 1394 serial bus, comprising: a plurality of ports, wherein a plurality of analog devices can be connected to said ports, a status register for indicating which subset of said plurality of analog devices are connected to said ports, wherein each of said plurality of analog devices is assigned to a separate bit in the status register, a configuration ROM for storing information related to said subset of the plurality of analog devices that are connected, a controller for setting bits of the status register to designate status of the subset of analog devices that are connected, reading the status of the set status register, and recording on the configuration ROM a connection information of the subset of the analog devices that are connected, wherein said configuration ROM refers to the bit status of the status register, when an analog device is connected to the port, a 1394 interfacing unit for receiving a packet data from the IEEE 1394 bus, checking whether the packet data corresponds to a node thereof, and disintegrating packet data and removing a header from the packet data when the packet data corresponds to the node thereof, a storing unit for storing a payload data removed from the header, a destination unit extractor for decoding the payload data and extracting a destination information corresponding to the payload data, and a data translating unit for translating the extracted destination information into an analog signal.
The 1394 interfacing unit comprises a physical layer for receiving a packet data from the IEEE 1394 bus and a link layer for checking whether the received packet data is the data corresponding to the node thereof and disintegrating the packet data, removing a header from the packet data, and detecting error when the received packet data is the data corresponding to the node thereof.
To achieve the second object, there is provided an analog translating method for the IEEE 1394 bus, comprising the steps of checking which subset of a plurality of analog devices are connected, recording information on the subset of the plurality of analog devices that are connected, initializing the IEEE 1394 bus after plugging a translator in the IEEE 1394 bus, determining whether a request to transmit 1394 bus data has been received, analyzing a packet header of a packet data when said request to transmit data has been received and checking whether the packet data is a data corresponding to the node connected to the translator, separating the payload data into a destination unit information and a pure payload data and extracting the destination unit information, translating the pure payload and transmitting the translated payload data to a destination unit corresponding to the extracted destination unit information.